Jon Stewart announces "Rally to Restore Sanity"

[Liberty]

http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/09/17/the ... c-rallies/

The Internet Wins: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert Announce D.C. Rallies

When the web calls, Stewart and Colbert answer.

After a lengthy, persistent Internet campaign started by users of the site Reddit that raised over $200,000 for charity, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have relented. They will host opposing rallies on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on October 30.

The announcement started last night on The Daily Show, when Stewart announced his Rally to Restore Sanity, a call to the nation to "take it down a notch for America." The name, of course, mocks Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally — so naturally, Stewart compared his choice of date to Beck's choice of the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

"Now you're probably saying to yourself, October 30, 2010, that rings a bell ... the 36th anniversary of George Forman and Muhammad Ali's Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire! Yes! But that's not why the date is significant. I'll tell you the significance of October 30th. You see, The Daily Show's actually already going to be in Washington doing shows."

As his segment drew to a close, Stewart provided some sample protest signs for the realistic, sane ralliers to carry. They included, "I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler."

But naturally, Stephen Colbert wasn't going to take that lying down. On The Colbert Report, he lashed out against Stewart's call for reason, noting that "reason is just one letter away from treason." So to counteract Stewart, he announced his own rally, "to fight Jon Stewart's creeping reasonableness, [and] to restore truthiness."

(More on TIME.com: See "Stephen Colbert" on our Top 10 Alter Egos list.)

Colbert's rally, The March to Keep Fear Alive, will also occur on October 30 in Washington. Colbert, naturally, used fearmongering to get people to attend. "People should definitely book their hotel rooms now," he said, "or their children might turn gay."

[Chaotic Neutral]

It would be both sad and hilarious if these are larger than the Glen Beck rallies.

[Liberty]

I have to admit, I kind of want to go.

I guess I just wish Stewart's rally was more openly leftist.

What the hell is wrong with this country, anyway? Death panels? "Ground Zero Mosque"? The president a secret Muslim, and not an American citizen? Sometimes I just want to shake people!

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

October 30, eh? I'm only a couple of hours away from D.C., it might be worth it to go, assuming I have the money, time, and a vehicle that could make the trip.

Liberty, you're a more tolerant person than I am, there's not a day that goes by that I don't want to go cross-country and just pimp slap every moron I meet.

[Simon_Jester]

I have to admit, I kind of want to go.

Meet you there? I live so comically close to DC that I actually decided to attend the inauguration more or less on a lark; I could totally do this.

I have to admit, I kind of want to go.

I guess I just wish Stewart's rally was more openly leftist.

At this point, sanity is a leftist ideology by American standards.

So is Gaullism (all that dirigisme).

So is William Jennings Bryan, who may be more famous here as the Uberfundie who supported the prosecution in the Scopes Monkey Trial, but who is also famously on record as saying:

"Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

Seriously, it is difficult to overstate just how far to the right the American right wing has swung. An appeal to sanity is almost by definition an appeal favoring the center-left at this point; they're to the left of just about every social conservative or economic conservative in the history of civilization who wasn't crazy or a barbarian.

[General Zod]

I'm sorely tempted to use this as an excuse to visit DC.

[Liberty]

Wouldn't it be funny if we designated a specific place and a specific time in DC that day as a sort of SDN meeting place?

My problem is that it's an eleven hour drive from where I am, and we have school until 2:00 Friday afternoon and then again at 9:00 Monday morning. So that makes for a quick, long trip! And we can't exactly leave the baby (though I must say, she's a pretty good traveler)!

[Alphawolf55]

I live in NYC, I'll probably take one of the 15 dollar buses to get there.

[Temujin]

I wish I was back in DC already, though 10/30 is still a ways off, and it's only a two hour drive.

Wouldn't it be funny if we designated a specific place and a specific time in DC that day as a sort of SDN meeting place?

I was just thinking that. It would certainly be a great excuse for a meet up.

[Themightytom]

Well its gonna wreak havoc with my Halloween plans..

[Mr Bean]

Just checked into this myself. A nine hour drive and at least 180 dollars for a Hotel. That assumes I stay out in Bethesda or Fairfax and drive out the day of. Or I could stay near DC and take the metro and spend instead 300 on the hotel... Tough, could be a fun day but with the drive I'd want to get there on the 29th.

[General Zod]

Just checked into this myself. A nine hour drive and at least 180 dollars for a Hotel. That assumes I stay out in Bethesda or Fairfax and drive out the day of. Or I could stay near DC and take the metro and spend instead 300 on the hotel... Tough, could be a fun day but with the drive I'd want to get there on the 29th.

$180 for a hotel? There's a Holiday Inn near the national mall with rates going of $139/night. (I have a friends & family code that would let me get a room for $105 if I can manage to hammer out some sort of schedule to get there.)

[Mr Bean]

$180 for a hotel? There's a Holiday Inn near the national mall with rates going of $139/night. (I have a friends & family code that would let me get a room for $105 if I can manage to hammer out some sort of schedule to get there.)

90 per night, two nights.
I lived on again off again in DC for three years while I was in the Navy. I know it's traffic patterns. I know it's roads and having been to Bethesda Medical Hospital several times and almost getting a place there once. I know the area. I always try and stay outside the beltway when visiting DC because it's only a short hop down George Washington Parkway (Which is a fun drive) to get onto 395 in the heart of DC. Parking as always will be the issue once inside DC.

[Liberty]

Just checked into this myself. A nine hour drive and at least 180 dollars for a Hotel. That assumes I stay out in Bethesda or Fairfax and drive out the day of. Or I could stay near DC and take the metro and spend instead 300 on the hotel... Tough, could be a fun day but with the drive I'd want to get there on the 29th.

Yeah, we're looking at a 11 hour drive. At least we have relatives just outside of DC, and could stay with them.

[General Zod]

$180 for a hotel? There's a Holiday Inn near the national mall with rates going of $139/night. (I have a friends & family code that would let me get a room for $105 if I can manage to hammer out some sort of schedule to get there.)

90 per night, two nights.
I lived on again off again in DC for three years while I was in the Navy. I know it's traffic patterns. I know it's roads and having been to Bethesda Medical Hospital several times and almost getting a place there once. I know the area. I always try and stay outside the beltway when visiting DC because it's only a short hop down George Washington Parkway (Which is a fun drive) to get onto 395 in the heart of DC. Parking as always will be the issue once inside DC.

Ah. I was only looking at staying for one night. Then again I live far enough away I'd have to take a plane to get there.

[open_sketchbook]

I'm telling you, if I wasn't broke I'd come support the reinstitution of sanity in the United States by bringing a little of the Canadian sanity with me.

[Davis 51]

When I saw this last night, my girlfriend glared at me intensely before saying "we're going". Who am I to argue?

Luckily my parents live within 20 minutes from DC, so if I make the 4 hour drive on Friday, I can stay with them until Sunday!

[CmdrWilkens]

$180 for a hotel? There's a Holiday Inn near the national mall with rates going of $139/night. (I have a friends & family code that would let me get a room for $105 if I can manage to hammer out some sort of schedule to get there.)

90 per night, two nights.
I lived on again off again in DC for three years while I was in the Navy. I know it's traffic patterns. I know it's roads and having been to Bethesda Medical Hospital several times and almost getting a place there once. I know the area. I always try and stay outside the beltway when visiting DC because it's only a short hop down George Washington Parkway (Which is a fun drive) to get onto 395 in the heart of DC. Parking as always will be the issue once inside DC.

'course you could stay at any of the hundreds of MD suburban hotels in HoCo and eastern MoCo then catch the MARC train in and out of town thus dropping both your hotel bill and the worry about parking.


Anyway given how ridiculously close to me this is I am planning to attend work status permitting.

[The Romulan Republic]

I so dearly wish I could go, but I have classes and I'm on a very tight budget.

Any chance they'll play the rallies on their shows? I don't want to miss it completely.

[Mr Bean]

'course you could stay at any of the hundreds of MD suburban hotels in HoCo and eastern MoCo then catch the MARC train in and out of town thus dropping both your hotel bill and the worry about parking.


Anyway given how ridiculously close to me this is I am planning to attend work status permitting.

That would add 100+ miles to the trip Wilkens. I'm coming from the West not the east. I'm in the middle of the country. ATM I'm looking into the metro situation again. I forgot how far the Red line ran. Picking a hotel near one of the stations and taking a hotel shuttle over might be ideal. For roughly the same cost per night as well.

[Slacker]

I don't think my wife and I are going to be able to swing the trip, but on the other hand I think they should totally set up a couple more of these elsewhere in the country for those of us unable to make the trip.

[Andrew J.]

October 30th is my birthday, and I couldn't think of a better way to spend it than to walk down to The Mall for the rally.

[Liberty]

I don't think my wife and I are going to be able to swing the trip, but on the other hand I think they should totally set up a couple more of these elsewhere in the country for those of us unable to make the trip.

I totally agree with you on this. It looks like DC is just going to be too far for us. But, if someone organized a subsidiary rally in Indianapolis, we could totally do that!

[MKSheppard]

30 October? Bah. I'm gonna be in Ocean City for Halloween. Just...because

[Cairber]

It's really close for us-- hour 45 min to 2 hour drive. We can go down for the day and drive back easily. Does anyone want to meet up somewhere?